Middletown Teen First Runner Up in Statewide Poetry/Prose Contest

A Middletown High School junior and aspiring novelist is first runner-up in the prose category of the 16th Annual Connecticut Young Writers Trust celebration.

Olive Kuhn's short story, “Vicarious,” (read it in the attached PDF) is set presumably in the near future, and is about a paid cyber-surveillance operative who becomes excessively interested, in a sympathetic way, in the lives of a couple he is surveilling.

The Connecticut Young Writers Trust is dedicated to discovering, cultivating and affirming creative literary expression in young people ages 13-18 in Connecticut. Over the past 15 years, it has awarded young writers more than $200,000 in its annual poetry/prose competition. 

Awards were given out June 9 at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain.

The state’s longest running literary contest dedicated to encouraging youth literacy and creative expression accepts submissions from students enrolled or in the equivalent of 9th through 12th grades in a public, private, parochial, Catholic, remedial or home school and all nominations must be made by a teacher. 

Winners are chosen from a pool of finalists selected by a team of published writers, journalists and professors.

Finalists and two teachers were rewarded for their hard work and the high school teachers who enter the most submissions in poetry and in prose receive $250 to the retailer of their choosing.

The two state champions are Kathryn Fitzpatrick, 17, of Thomaston High School, who won for her story, “Caught in the Weeds,” and Ailsa Slater, 18, of Westover School in Middlebury, who won for her poem, “Blackbeard’s Daughter.” 

Their teachers are Marie Butterly and Bruce Coffin.